How To Buy Technology

The Smart Way To Buy Technology

Choice is a mixed blessing. Whenever there is an amazing new phone, console or dual-wield Slap Chop released, it always comes with a competitor that’s just as good. The problem is, picking the “best” technology is never a guarantee that it will still be around in a few years. Betamax, HD-DVD — you name it. There’s a promising piece of tech out there that will flop, potentially leaving you with a living room full of good intentions in plastic form. So what’s a guy to do with all these choices, and does anyone want to buy a box set of Emmanuelle LaserDiscs?

Ask yourself: What’s the rush?

As a wise and shades-at-night-wearing man once said, “Only fools rush in.” While that may seem ironic coming from a guy who actually did Blue Steel constantly, Corey Hart has a point. If there’s a 50-50 chance you’ll be investing in garbage, don’t bother. Otherwise, just buy a sharpie and write “suc” on your forehead and wait to see if you need to finish the “ker” later. It’s that easy. If it’s too late and you’re stuck with a ton of useless tech, try and see it coming earlier so you can at least unload it to minimize your loss. Or ask yourself another crucial question: Does it blend?

Pressure companies to support open standards

It’s a sad truth but, unless a company is on the losing end of controlling a market, it won’t be pushing an open standard like H.264 video, HTML5, etc. Microsoft’s newfound love for these standards only happened after its Flash alternative, Silverlight, flopped. That had the unintended but predictable consequences of taking my Logitech Harmony Remote software with it. Logitech seems to have a knack for backing the loser and pissing off customers at the same time, so hopefully it’ll wise up and go back to making proper cross-platform software instead of saying "Sorry, we only do IE on Windows,” which is like saying you’re from 1993.

Logitech learned the open standards lesson by losing money, but your feedback is the key. After pressure from developers, even the infamously pig-headed Steve Jobs changed his mind about what programs could be used for app development for iOS. An educated, well-versed opinion addressed to the right people will get heard. All-caps rants won’t — they’ll just further empower the caps-lock lobby.

Picking sides is lame

I used to be one of those Mac fanboys who said “I’ll never get a Windows machine.” But necessity has a way of changing your mind and, to get access to 3D apps and games I wanted, I built a PC and was better off for it. It didn’t replace my Mac, and I eventually got my 3D apps for OS X, but now I can definitely appreciate the appeal of Windows and cheap vanilla PC hardware. Doing without for the sake of toeing a line you stupidly drew for yourself isn’t impressing anyone. Apple isn’t a cause, the PlayStation isn’t Communism and Google isn’t in need of a good Samaritan.

Similarly, I may prefer the roster of titles on the PS3, but the Xbox’s existence in the gaming market has been crucial in showing Sony it can’t just shovel expensive stuff at us and have it eaten up. In a sense, you should always be happy your favorite phone/computing platform/console/tablet has a competitor because it will only make it better. However, doesn’t that complicate our choice problem? Yes, at least it will bore your girlfriend a lot less now that you’re not bitching about the iPhone.